Once upon a time there were people. Some lived upstairs, others lived downstairs. Both upstairs and downstairs and on the floors in-between were many different rooms. Some people stayed in one room, some in another, and each room contained peoples who were rather similar to each other. In one room were the white western Evangelicals, in another room charismatic Catholics, in a third room Latino Pentecostals, in another African Anglicans. There were many more rooms. Some had been in existence for a very long time, and had established traditions, liturgies and ways of dressing. Others had recently been added to the building, coming from a Muslim background. They were all in the same building but they never had to meet each other, and they all got on pretty well most of the time in their distinct groups.
Then one day someone opened the door of the
room they were in and stepped out into the stairwell. As they hovered
cautiously on the edge of the stairwell they saw someone hesitatingly
approaching from another door. Someone else was becoming visible at the top of
the stairwell, yet another person from the area downstairs. As these people
came together on the stairwell a million thoughts were racing through their
minds. These people may say they
follow Jesus, but they are different from me. They don’t follow Jesus in the
same way as I do. Will they accept me? Can I accept them? Is it right to mix
with such people? I disapprove of some of their practices.
Some scurried back to the comfort of their
own room and wrote Internet blogs denouncing those who lived in the other
rooms. However others stayed on the staircase, dared to commingle with those
who were different, risked sharing love with those who had different customs,
beliefs and traditions. It was hard work and there were tears of sorrow as well
as tears of joy, but as they made their home in the stairwell, barriers were
broken down, boundaries became meeting places, and they discovered what community
was all about.
